Netanyahu wants Iran condemned on Holocaust day

AFP,

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the world on Wednesday to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and act against the Jewish state's arch-foe Iran.

Speaking to parliament ahead of international Holocaust Remembrance Day, he accused the "regime of the ayatollahs" of inciting a new "genocide" against the Jewish people.

Israel regards Iran as its principal threat, after repeated predictions by its hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Jewish state's demise.

The Iranian leader has also frequently and publicly denied the Holocaust, calling it a "myth."

Netanyahu said world leaders were aware of the mass murder of the Jews being carried out by the Nazis during the Holocaust but failed to act, and urged them not to make the same mistake today.

"They knew and did not act," Netanyahu said.

"Today they know, they hear, they see, they film," Netanyahu said of Iran's threats. "Will they act, will they speak, really speak, attack or condemn?"

"I expect the world will learn the lesson and act with words and deeds against the new anti-Semitism," Netanyahu said.

The Holocaust commemoration is held on January 27, the day Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz death camp in 1945.

Israel, which has the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear arsenal, suspects Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under cover of a civilian nuclear programme. Tehran denies that charge.

Israel has backed a US policy of leading efforts at the UN Security Council for tougher sanctions against Iran while remaining open to dialogue.

But the Jewish state has refused to rule out a resort to military action to stop Iran developing a weapons capability.